The support is an oak panel consisting of three horizontally grained planks and is bevelled on all sides. The whitish ground layer is thin and smooth. The paint was applied smoothly and opaquely.

Fair. There is an old 13 cm crack at lower left. There is loose paint throughout, some small losses, and disturbing retouchings along the panel joins and in the foreground. The varnish is very yellow and has crazed.

…; ? sale, P.C. Haemacher (†) and F.L. Berré (Leiden), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 30 November 1897, no. 20, as copy after Gonzales Coques (‘Intérieur. Dans un vaste apartement, deux groupes de seigneurs et de dames; ceux le plus à gauche, jouant au trictrac. Sur la droite, devant l’âtre, une cuisinière rôtissant de la volaille, et un soldat buvant un verre de vin. Bois, - Hauteur 57 cm. Largeur 91 cm.’), fl. 150, to E. de Coninck, Brussels;¹¹Copy RKD.…; sale, dowager of G. v.d. B. v. L. à A. (†) et al., Amsterdam (C.F. Roos), 3 April 1900 sqq., no. 42, as T. Keyser (‘Maître non-décrit. Corps de garde. Plusiers guerriers, quelques gentilshommes et des femmes, sont groupées autour d’une table couverte d’une tapis rouge. Assis à une autre table, trois seigneurs et une dame qui prennent le diner. Signé en toutes letters. Bois. Hauteur 56 cm Largeur 90 cm’), fl. 180, to the museum, as Dutch School c. 1620; on loan to the Rijksmuseum Muiderslot, Muiden, since 1922

Object number: SK-A-1852

A motley company of 12 people are whiling away their time playing tric-trac and cards, eating, drinking and smoking. On the right a woman is preparing a roast on a spit. Details like the amorous dalliance, chiefly on the part of the couple behind the table, and the oyster-shells on the table and floor, leave little doubt that this is a veritable catalogue of reprehensible behaviour.²²On this see coll. cat. Muiden 1989, no. 54. For the negative connotations of the game of tric-trac see Amsterdam 1976, pp. 109-11; Luijten in Amsterdam 1997, pp. 204-06.

According to the catalogue of the sale of 3 April 1900 where the painting was acquired by the museum, and the museum inventory, the painting is signed ‘T. Keyser’, but no trace of that was found when it was examined in 2004.³³See Provenance. There is no known painter called T. Keyser, and this interior has nothing whatever to do with the work of the Amsterdam portraitist Thomas de Keyser. Hofstede de Groot saw an affinity with Esaias van de Velde,⁴⁴RKD, Hofstede de Groot notes. but the resemblance is no more than superficial. The artist of this rather naive piece was probably a minor provincial master. It can be dated c. 1620-25 on the evidence of the dress.⁵⁵Oral communication, Bianca du Mortier, 2004.

Gerdien Wuestman, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 420.

Coll. cat. Muiden 1989, no. 54

1903, p. 11, no. 104; 1976, p. 676, no. A 1852; 2007, no. 420

G. Wuestman, 2007, 'anonymous, Interior with Gamblers and Drinkers, c. 1620 - c. 1625', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20027431